Hail Creek

Overview

Hail Creek Mine is located 90 km south west of Mackay in central Queensland, Australia. It supplies steel mills in Asia and Europe with up to 8 million tonnes of hard coking coal per annum.

Hail Creek Mine's coal deposit was discovered in 1968; project feasibility work was completed in the 1970s. In 2001, Hail Creek Mine started construction and the mine was officially opened in 2003. It is a conventional open cast coal mining operation.

 Rio Tinto Coal Australia manages the operation on behalf of the joint venture partners, Queensland Coal Pty Limited (82 per cent), Nippon Steel Australia Pty Ltd (8 per cent), Marubeni Coal Pty Ltd (6.67 per cent) and Sumisho Coal Development Pty Ltd (3.33 per cent).

Location

The Hail Creek Mine is located 40 km north west of Nebo and 120 km south west of Mackay in the Bowen Basin of Queensland, Australia.

Queensland - the 'sunshine state' -  is Australia's second-largest and third most populous state, located in the northeast of the country. To the east is bordered by the Coral Sea and the Pacific Ocean.

Coal mining is a major contributor to the state's economy. The state also has significant coal seam gas, natural gas and bauxite deposits.

Agriculture and tourism are other staples of the Queensland economy.

Geology & Mineralization

Queensland's central and eastern coal deposits were formed over a period of time stretching from Carboniferous (350 million years old), to Permian (280 million years), Triassic (250 million years) and Jurassic (200 million years).

The coal deposit is part of the Bowen Basin, a significant Permian coal basin that occupies  a 550 km long and up to 250 km wide triangular zone in central Queensland. It extends south beneath younger sediments and it connects with New South Wales' Sydney and Gunnedah Basins.

Bowen Basin's coal deposits vary in quality and rank, with rank increasing from west to east. The best coking coal - medium to high volatile bituminous - are  to be found in the central part of the basin.

Metallurgical coal is mined from two seams: the Elphinstone Seam, with an average thickness of 6.4 metres and the Hynds Seam, averaging 8.3 metres in thickness.                                                                         

As of December 2011, marketable mineral reserves were estimated at 72 million tonnes met coal, while mineral resources were calculated at 175 million tonnes met coal.            

Mining & Operation

Hail Creek Mine is an open cut mine that is using a dragline combined with a truck and shovel method.

Over 940 employees (December 2011) work in shifts to keep the mine operational 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

Processing

Broken coal is washed down and cleaned of impurities.

After being washed and prepared for sale, the coal is loaded onto trains for transportation 100km to the Dalrymple Bay Coal terminal where it is shipped to international customers.

Environment & Community

 Hail Creek Mine seeks to be more than just a major source of local employment and economic growth, rather to work in partnership with the local community.

Through their community relations programme, Rio Tinto Coal Australia is working to help provide positive long term outcomes for the Mackay region.